Does the Royal Navy Have More Admirals Than Ships?

There are some news stories concerning the Armed Forces that are so predictable, you can usually set markers in your calendar for them to be republished. One such story is the tired assertion that the Royal Navy ‘has more Admirals than ships’, the latest iteration of which was published in the Sun this morning. A very quick google search finds similar examples of this story occurring in 2008, 2013, 2014 2016 alone.

Sadly this sort of nonsense is usually found by defining ‘warship’ as whatever the author wants it to mean. According to the latest article, the Royal Navy only has 20 warships (19 escorts and a carrier) but 34 Admirals / Generals.

The subject of Admirals and Ships (or Squadron Leaders and Squadrons) seems to set off a near pavlovian response in some people. The idea that the UK doesn’t have a ‘real’ navy anymore, just a bunch of overpromoted chinless wonders in uniform with large retinues and little work to occupy their comfy jobs for life while arguing over who gets to play with the model boat in the bathtub.

Fabulous gratuitous Carrier photo

The first issue to tackle is the subject of ‘what is a warship’? A warship can be anything the authors of the article want it to be, yet assuming the Royal Navy ‘only’ has 20 warships is utterly wrong. While the RN may only have 19 escorts in service, it also has a wide range of other vessels that help make it one of the most capable naval powers on the planet.

The Mine Warfare force for instance comprises 13 vessels, with four permanently based in the Middle East. This force may comprise smaller vessels, but they are some of the most influential and capable assets the RN has, and buy the UK significant influence and access. For instance, the force in the Middle East plays an utterly critical role in keeping the sea-lanes open, and works on a genuine peer basis with their US Navy counterparts.

In practically every naval operation conducted since WW2, the Mine Ware force has played a central role in ensuring the major naval assets can safely operate – ranging from sweeping for mines off the coast of Kuwait in 1991 to ensuring that the major maritime choke points are capable of being kept open in a crisis. While MCMVs may be small, if they did not exist then the UK’s ability to survive as a maritime power is genuinely called into question – the UK economy could not cope with the closure of any choke point like the Straits of Hormuz or Bab-Al-Mendab for any length of time. The RN has chosen to invest heavily in this field, and many allies are keen to see the presence of these ships in their exercises and operations. Small yes, but they are definitely proper warships.

In a similar vein, the authors seem to have casually dismissed the existence of the RN’s amphibious forces, capable of providing a genuinely global presence that can deliver British and allied forces onto land at a time and place of our choosing. Very few countries can deliver this sort of effect, partly because it is so difficult to do. Vessels such as HMS ALBION play a critical part in wider defence diplomacy too, providing global reach and access to further British foreign and security policy goals.

The hydrographic force is one of the busiest and most operationally tasked of the RN fleet, working its ships hard across the globe. The work carried out by these vessels makes a critical difference in supporting operations, and also protecting our national interests from the Med to Antarctica.

Finally we forget at our peril that a warship also includes the Royal Navy submarine force, 11 hulls strong that is operating daily to deliver both the strategic nuclear deterrent and a range of other capabilities via the TRAFALGAR and ASTUTE class vessels. This force is perpetually busy and operates in some of the most complex and challenging environments on the planet.

It is easy to write off vast swathes of the RN and say ‘we don’t have a navy anymore’ in much the same way that you could look at the media scene in the UK, decide that the only assets that matter are the Fleet Street national titles and rule out the local press, and decide that radio and television broadcasting doesn’t count. In those circumstances ‘we don’t really have any good media outlets anymore’ is an equally valid, but also equally nonsensical assertion to make.

The reason this matters is that there is a genuine blindspot among some defence commentators who seem to think that only a tiny part of the RN fleet count as warships, and more importantly, seem to dislike the idea that these ships need people to run and support them. There is a near visceral dislike in some quarters about the idea that not only do you need people, but, god forbid, some of them may be Admirals too.

The first reality check that needs to be made is to try and reassure people that 34 Admirals isn’t actually that many relative to the size of the force. The modern Naval Service (RN, RM, RFA, RNR) is roughly 36,000 strong. This means that the total 2* and above head count is less than 0.1% of the entire force.

In reality the numbers are even lower – of these 34 posts, at anyone time roughly 13 of them are in what are considered ‘Single Service’ posts. In other words this is a purely RN job that exists for the RN and is only filled by RN Officers. Suddenly we’re down to about 0.05% of the Naval Service manpower is Admirals in genuinely naval jobs.

The remaining posts are either ‘purple’ or wider international and liaison jobs. For instance, the RN today has two ‘Admirals (4*) and six Vice Admirals (3*). Of  these 8 posts, only three are directly in the Naval hierarchy (1^st Sea Lord, Fleet Commander and 2^nd Sea Lord). The rest are a variety of tri-service roles (for instance Chief of Joint Operations) and NATO posts.

These numbers compare favourably to many other nations with navies of comparable size and roles. For instance the Brazilian Navy has a force structure where their Fleet organisation is led by a 4* officer and supported by no less than 13 2* officers. The RN has been pretty merciless at culling and de-ranking posts over many years too – For example in the last twenty five years the RN has gone from having four ‘single service’ 4* Officers to just one.

Why does the RN need these officers in the first place and what do they do? A lot of people assume that Admirals command at sea, and are often surprised to discover that the UK has a single ‘seagoing’ Admiral (COMUKMARFOR).

In simple terms an Admiral is a senior post in a hierarchy designed to provide leadership, management, governance and ownership of responsibilities. They are required to lead organisations that may include authority over thousands of people operating globally (for example PJHQ) , or deliver complex engineering projects that will shape the future capability of the Royal Navy for decades to come (for example delivering DREADNOUGHT and QUEEN ELIZABETH). They may be responsible for managing the tribal arms of the Service (for instance the Fleet Air Arm or Submarine Service) or be charged with responsibility for safely operating nuclear warheads and reactors or having overall responsibility for the safety of keeping aircraft in the air.

These roles are not make-work jobs, and the incumbents are often dual or triple hatted. The average working day begins very early, and ends very late – with a wide range of issues and briefs to master. People often forget that the Royal Navy is as much an engineering organisation focusing on project delivery as it is a warfighting organisation. They may not always be at sea, but they are delivering the leadership and managerial functions that the RN needs to keep its ships at sea ready to fight tonight.

From a practical perspective, the role of the Admiral is as much about delivering a credible career structure and retaining people who have been around for decades, rather than losing their experience. 

In a system built around rank and hierarchy, money for doing the job longer is perhaps less valuable to determining value and status than title. No one joins the Navy to become an Admiral – but for many officers in their mid-late forties, when they start competing for OF5 (Captain) and 1* (Commodore) posts, suddenly the possibility of flag rank becomes more tangible. At this point it becomes a good carrot to keep people in, and continue to encourage them to stay and not leave to pursue a second career.

People also forget that for those who stay, the move to 2* is actually fraught with risk – there is not a comfortable job for life waiting for you. Promotion to this level means moving to a system where if there is no job to fill, then you will leave the Service at the end of your appointment. Much like a game of musical chairs, the last person without a job leaves – something that has been responsible for many good people departing unexpectedly over the years.This system is also reportedly being extend to the 1* community now, adding yet more uncertainty in for all senior officers.

To that end it is actually a fairly brutal business being a 2* in the Royal Navy – you are constantly unsure as to whether you will have a job at the end of this appointment, and if you have university aged children or school fees to pay, it can be rather stressful. Unlike more junior ranks who have a certain surety of tenure, being a senior officer in the military is not a cushy number – there are no quiet appointments to hide in.

When you push back against people moaning about the number of Admirals and ask ‘which jobs would you stop doing’ the usual response is a spot of mumbling, muttering and no clearly discernible answer. Sometimes people suggest that to save money everything could be dropped by a rank, yet this supposed solution neither solves the challenge of how to work such a system in a hierarchy, or the damage slowed promotions and reduced career prospects would have on people in the system.

It is also important to realise that reducing Admirals doesn’t really save very much money at all. Based on the ‘full capitation rates’ produced by the MOD (albeit now a couple of years old), we can see that the total cost in 2015/16 of a Commodore was £167k, a Rear Admiral was approximately £191k, and a Vice Admiral was £233k per year (no figures are available for 4*).

This means the total cost to the RN of its 2* and above community is approximately just over £6.3m for 34 staff. This sounds quite a lot of money until you search for FTSE100 pay and discover information like this CIPD chart which shows that last year 22 of the FTSE100 CEO’s earned between £5-£10m per year each. Given the scale and scope of responsibility the UK expects of its senior military officers, this is perhaps a timely reminder that Admirals do not cost the earth.

Could the RN try to save money by reducing Admirals and using the money saved to recruit more junior staff? In 2015/16 the full capitation rate for a brand new Able Seaman was approximately £37,600 per person.

If you de-ranked every Rear Admiral to Commodore, then the total savings would pay for a total of 16 extra sailors (roughly 0.05% of total manpower).

If you scrapped every single Rear Admiral post in the Royal Navy without replacement, then the annual savings would pay for a total of 132 Able Seaman – or a onetime net gain to the trained strength of about an extra 106 people (about 0.3% of naval manpower)

In reality the numbers would be even less, as these extra sailors would advance through the career structure, costing more over time and reducing the overall total even lower and there is no accounting taken of allowance payments etc. The blunt reality is that the sort of savings envisaged by people loftily saying ‘scrap the Admirals to pay for more sailors’ will realistically give you less than 100 extra sailors and do untold and probably irreparable damage to the governance and management of the Royal Navy for decades to come.

As a nation we are busy to do ourselves down, we enjoy feeling bad about ourselves and deciding that somehow we don’t matter anymore. The constant refrain of ‘we don’t have a navy anymore’ is reinforced by reading articles that suggest that the UK is a declining maritime power.

Yet an objective look would reveal a nation that possesses a navy that remains the benchmark by which so many other navies judge themselves. It is globally deployed today, operates the full range of naval capabilities and has consistently proven itself to be able to succeed at whatever tasks are thrown at it.

The Royal Navy may be physically smaller than the past, but it is not less capable and today stands on the cusp of yet more revolution as long awaited ships enter service, and one of the most ambitious military shipbuilding programmes on the planet is poised to deliver hundreds of thousands of tonnes of shipping over the next 10-15 years.

The fact that this force is led by a tiny number of senior officers is not a sign of a bloated force, but instead a good reminder that the RN is willing to cut its senior officers to a tiny overall level to deliver.

Humphrey would suggest that if you asked any industry to look at what the RN does  – which is deliver a 24/7/365 global presence on every ocean on the planet, while maintaining its own air-force, army and nuclear power/weapon capability, and managing the design, delivery and maintenance of this force, while also contributing to a huge range of complex missions and tasks, and do so with a leadership force of just 15 senior officers on a total combined package of less than even one of the lowest paid FTSE100 CEOs, then they would  be reasonably impressed at the tautness of it all.

Perhaps it is time for the British public to be able to take pride in their Admirals too?